In Rome, Pozzi started working as a model and studied acting. Sometimes she performed in TV adverts or as a walk-on in comedy movies. She was very ambitious, and in Rome she became the lover of many famous people. Her most famous secret lover was Bettino Craxi, Prime Minister of Italy from 1983 to 1987. Through his intervention, she got a job at RAI Television on a children's entertainment program. The same year (1981) she performed her first hardcore movie, Valentina, ragazza in calore (Valentina, Girl in Heat), credited as Linda Heveret. A minor scandal ensued since, at the same time the movie was in theaters, she was still working on children's TV. She denied being the same person, but she was suspended from TV anyway. This gave her her first popularity in newspapers and magazines. In 1985 Federico Fellini wanted her to perform in his movie Ginger and Fred.

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In 1986, Pozzi met Riccardo Schicchi, manager of Diva Futura, the agency of the most famous porn stars like Cicciolina. Her first A-movie in hard core was Fantastica Moana, where she used her real name for the first time. She also took part in the famous Curve Deliziose (Delicious Curves) next to Cicciolina others, the first live show in Italy where naked models would masturbate onstage. This caused scandal and accusations of outrageous obscenity. She became huge in the hardcore business and soon eclipsed the popularity of Cicciolina in Italy. (At the same time Cicciolina stopped doing porn to pursue a political career in Italian Parliament.) Pozzi's appearances on TV also caused scandal. In the show Matrjoska by Antonio Ricci, she used to appear on stage completely naked or just wrapped in a transparent plastic veil. Magazines and newspapers were more and more interested in her and she was often featured on covers. She was also appreciated for her distinctive intelligence, defying the cliché of the brainless pinup. She cultivated intellectuals, writers, and artists such as Mario Schifano or Dario Bellezza. This was the first time a porn-star became so popular in everyday life.

Pozzi was conscious of her role in show business. In interviews she always spoke of what she wanted to be for public opinion: sexy, sophisticated, intelligent, open-minded, worldly.

In 1991, Pozzi published her first book Moana's Philosophy where she listed, with marks from 4 to 9.5, twenty famous celebrities who had been her lovers. The list included actors like Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Roberto Benigni and Massimo Troisi, soccer players like Paulo Roberto Falcão and Marco Tardelli, writers like Luciano De Crescenzo. The name of the most famous one, the actual prime minister Bettino Craxi, who was her lover in 1981, was hidden as "the politician".

In 1992, Pozzi co-founded, with Hungarian Cicciolina, the Love Party of Italy, whose political program included legalization of brothels, better sex education and the creation of "love parks". No one was elected, but her popularity reached its pinnacle and the best Italian TV anchors wanted to interview her. Stylist Karl Lagerfeld wanted her on the catwalk in 1993. Moana Pozzi became so popular that she was a protagonist for an animated cartoon created by the famous Italian cartoonist Mario Verger, with herself co-directing. This film, entitled Moanaland (1994), aired frequently on Italian television in Blob, and in telecasts dedicated to the actress. Again Verger, by himself, dedicated to Moana Pozzi another cartoon, I Remember Moana, 1995, that gained praise by film critics Marco Giusti and Enrico Ghezzi, and was transmitted in Fuori Orario. It also won a Special Mention at the Erotic Film Festival in the United States.

Her sister Maria Tamiko "Mima" Pozzi became a porn actress, as well, with the stage name of Baby Pozzi.

Moana Pozzi performed in about 100 porn movies, mostly in Italy, but also some in Los Angeles with Gerard Damiano as director. She sold about 1 million videotapes. She was on the covers of 50 major magazines, not including pictorials in porn magazines. She was reportedly worth more than 50 billion 1990 Italian liras, about 40 million Euros. Some of her profits were donated posthumously to funding medical research on tumors.[1]

Moana Pozzi inspired the main character of the 1999 film Guardami ("Look at me"); in 2009 it was produced a miniseries based on her life, Moana. In 2010 his former magager Riccardo Schicchi produced and directed I Segreti di Moana ("The Secrets od Moana") in which the title role was played by Vittoria Risi.[2]